I calmed him with the twice-convenient namu, and after promising to explain the situation to the governor, I sat for some time on my paepae in the moonlight, talking with the unhappy convict.  Without prompting he divulged to me that my suspicions had been correct; Drink of Beer had himself instigated the raid of the bold Daughter of the Pigeon upon my rum.  Drink of Beer, it appeared, was known in the islands for many feats of successful duplicity.  One had nearly cost the life of Jean Richard, a young Frenchman who worked for the German trader in Taka-Uka.

“Earth Worm was a man of Taaoa,” said my guest, sitting cross-legged on my mats, his long-nailed, yellow fingers folded in his lap.  “He was nephew of Pohue-toa, eater of many men.  Earth Worm was arrested by Drink of Beer and brought before the former governor, Lailheugue, known as Little Pig.

“Drink of Beer said that Earth Worm had made namu enata, the juice of the flower of the palm that makes men mad.  Earth Worm swore that he had done no wrong.  He swore that Drink of Beer had allowed him, for a price, to make the namu enata, and that Drink of Beer had said this was according to the law.  But when he failed to pay again, Drink of Beer had arrested him.

“Drink of Beer said this not true.  He wore the red stripe on his sleeve; therefore the governor Little Pig said that Earth Worm lied, and sent him to prison for a year.

“Now Earth Worm was an informed man, a son of many chiefs, and himself resolved in his ways.  He said that he would speak before the courts of Tahiti, and he would not go in shame to the prison.  At this time that governor was finished with his work here and was departing on a ship to Tahiti, and Earth Worm with hate in his heart, embarked on that ship, saying nothing, but thinking much.

“He lived forward with the crew, and said nothing, but thought.  Others spoke to him, saying that he would not profit by the journey to Tahiti where the word of the governor was powerful, but he did not reply.  The men of the crew wished Earth Worm to kill the governor, for every Marquesan hated him, and he had done a terrible thing for which he deserved death.

“There had been an aged gendarme who fell ill because of a curse laid on him by a tahuna.  He was dying.  This governor took from his box in the house of medicines a sharp small knife, and with it he cut the veins of a Marquesan who had done some small wrong against the law and lay in jail.  He bound this man by the arm to the gendarme who was dying, and through the cut the blood ran into the gendarme’s veins.  His heart sucked the blood from the body of the Marquesan like a vampire bat of the forest, and he lay bound, feeling the blood go from him.  The village knew that this was being done, and could do nothing but hate and fear, for it was the governor who had done it.

“The gendarme died, and you may yet see on the beach sometimes that man who was a strong and brave Marquesan.  He trembles now like hotu leaves in the wind, for he never forgets the terrible magic done upon him by that governor.  He remembers the hours when he lay bound to that man who was dying, and the dying man sucked his blood from him.